Just bought a shiny new PPO Health Care plan from the CA Health Exchange for $870 (for a family of 5)

bycdubonDecember 12, 2013

This plan is a good $200 less per month than the Kaiser plan that we had before. Not sure how much less it’ll be than the COBRA bill we’ll probably get soon since my wife has now officially left her job.

But $870/month for a PPPO for a family of 5? And we can see any doctor we want? I’ll take that.

It would be a lot less if I qualified for subsidies… but alas…

Brave new world. The ACA has made it so that my wife can leave her job (that she hated) to stay home and raise the kids. She was only keeping the job because of the healthcare as I’m freelance… and now we can afford to buy it on the individual market with not much hassle. (now that the site is now working better)

I think this Obamacare thing is going to turn out to be a very good thing for all of us in the long room.

If your healthcare is now cheaper, it’s because somebody is paying your way. Paying your way by force. That’s what law is – force. If you break the law, eventually someone shows up at your house with a gun (or lots of folks with lots of guns) to either take your money or take you to jail or both. I’m glad your wife left a job she hated; sad that I don’t especially like mine and, I’m guessing, the folks subsidizing your health care, and I am one of them, would prefer to spend their time differently than working and paying taxes. “I’ll take that.” Well, yeah, taking is easy. But, would you earn it? Work to pay for it? Would you bust your ass so that a third of your income goes to the shifty and shiftless kid down the street who wants to glom on to welfare handouts (“if I qualified for subsidies…but alas”)? Somebody (lots of folks, via taxation) is paying your bills at the (implicit, but real) muzzle of a gun. Are you okay with that?

1. I work hard an pay a ton of taxes. This is not welfare.
2. I make too much money to qualify for a subsidy. Again… this is not welfare. (even if I did qualify for a subsidy it wouldn’t be welfare – more on that below)
3. It seems like you don’t really understand what the ACA does. It pools all of the uninsured into a big group (like employer healthcare plans) and uses their mass bargaining power of a group to negotiate lower rates.

It’s the free-market of the health care exchanges that makes the rates lower. The ACA was modeled after the market based solution to health care written by the conservative Heritage Foundation and Mitt Romney… It’s not a liberal solution to the problem. A liberal solution would be Canada style single payer.

And as far as subsidies – the tax breaks to make it lower – it isn’t welfare at all. It’s the exact same thing as the huge tax breaks that corporations get to provide health care to their workers. But since most of the people on the exchanges are self-employed… it’s just offering them the same tax breaks that big businesses get on their health care. (big businesses get a huge tax write off and tax incentives to offer health care)

Do you have the same heated rhetoric for school children? Your taxes pay for the schools. What about the fire department? The roads and bridges in your community? Do you rant and yell at them too?

The rate I’m paying is the market rate. No one is subsidizing my health care except myself. I’m just glad I can actually buy healthcare and not worry about pre-existing conditions anymore.